Rookie Travel Tips with Shannon

February 4, 2011 - Shannon

With January officially over we have completed month one of the Rookie Traveler Tips Contest. Last week I choose 2 winning tips, Angik S and Chris D. Thank you for your informative and helpful tips. By random draw the winner of our Free $100 Gift Card goes to Kim R! Send Rick your snail mail address so he can send you the card. I think it is a Marriott $100 gift card for January:)If you are just joining us, my name is Shannon and I am a “Rookie Traveler”. I’ve just gotten into this frugal travel game and I am learning a ton. Every Friday I post a question to you, our readers, asking for your advice, experiences and opinions. Please Join In. Submit your tip as a comment under Friday’s post, title it Rookie Tip, and leave your First Name and Last Initial at the end. Winning tips are announced the following Friday. If you are chosen you will be asked to email Rick your mailing address. Once a month we will draw names and one blessed traveler will walk away with a Free $100 Gift Card. Its just that simple.

This week I joined one more program, Alaskan Airlines/Horizon Air. This epiphany was not my own, it came from Angik S and his winning tip from last week:

“An important program that you have left out is Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. It is referred to as the “slut of the skies”. The reason is that it is partners with AA, Delta and a host of other Oneworld and Skyteam airlines. So if you credit your AA/Delta miles to them, you can use it on a plethora of airlines. (http://www.insideflyer.com/articles/article.php?key=6358). Another reason is that the Alaska Air BoA visa is probably the only card that offers a true $99 companion visa. I would also have also have suggested Aeroplan, but they have devalued in my opinion.” – Angik S

Upon signing up they gave me 500 bonus miles!!! Hallelujah! The first program so far to just give me free miles. They also have a standing offer of 1000 bonus miles for your first hotel booking through their site. Thinking about getting the hotel points, I searched their Mileage Plan-Hotel Partners only to realize you get additional points for staying at their partner hotels. This is becoming addictive. They partner with tons of hotels but in relation to the programs I just signed up for I noticed, Hyatt, Marriott, and Hilton, SPG and Priority club all had opportunities for extra points.

From the Skies, they partner with 15 other airlines; American Airlines, British Airways, Delta, Air France, Air Pacific, Cathay Pacific, Era Alaska, Horizon Air, Iceland Air, Kenmore Air, KLM, Korean Air, LAN, Pen Air, and Qantas. Not too bad I’d have to say. Just looking at the list I kept getting visions of all you crazy frugal travel folk arranging around the world trips using some amazing manipulation of these partners and your abilities to squeeze free travel out of anyone.

On the road, they partner with the rental companies; Avis, Alamo, Budget, Dollar, Hertz, National and Thrifty.

From the table, they offer an Alaskan Airlines Mileage Plan Dining program, partnering with over 10,000 restaurants and offering up to 5 miles for every dollar you spend and 500 bonus points for new members after the first $25 dollars you spend. You can go to http://www.mileageplan.rewardsnetwork.com/ to find out more.

So, I know I didn’t cover everything Alaskan Airlines offers, if you all have any additional tips regarding this program or other ones like it, please let us in on it. I didn’t rack up a ton of miles doing this, but it turned out to be a great program, and the time I spent surfing their site taught me a lot about how partnerships between these programs work. I think I’ll be able to better maximize bonus points by knowing who partners with who before I go booking hotels, flights,or rental cars. I do regret all the previous bookings points I wasted not knowing this stuff.

Thank you all for your contributions to the Rookies out there.Tips from the month of January have me headed in a great direction and I advise anyone just getting into this to go back and re read the Rookie Travel Tips Posts and Tips. Question of the week: My home airport is the Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE), it is serviced by the following airlines; American, Delta, Continental, United and U.S. Airways, what is the best way to determine which airline program to focus on when traveling from home?

- Shannon

Shannon’s TripAlertz.com Referral Link. Thank You

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Anonymous

Could you provide the method of cancelation? Can it be done online, if not what is the 800 number. Might save a lot of us some time.
René d

Rookie TIP

OK so you have now joined every program on the planet. You are digitally keeping track of your points in all programs. You have all your program numbers in your phone. Great!

BUT: Most places want to see your REAL CARD. What to do with SO many cards. Just bring the ones you need for THAT trip? What if you get bumped and need a car? What if the airline PAYS for a stay at another hotel along the way and you want POINTS for that stay too? Here is what you do:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4108/5413364464_d376a03942_b.jpg

The simple 3 KEY RING solution. I put all my FF card on one side and hotel and cars on the other. You could put a "quick release" in the middle or as me just another ring in the middle. You may need to punch the hole on one side or the other of the card to make sure you don't cut import info on the back btw! Then just grab them all for the trip and done!
Anonymous

Are there any differences in the score given by FICO and creditkarma?
Anonymous

One thing to keep in mind about YMMV as well as %%%% back sometimes they go away before they pay. For example:

http://www.cashbaq.com/

Now gone – done – see ya! If they owed you money – too bad. So count these money IMO as a bonus not as CASH until in hand.
Alex

That hat tip goes to Omar at FlightSpin, not me

http://flightspin.tumblr.com/post/3069267682/american-express-40-bonus-with-transfers-to-british
Anonymous

Mr Frugal Travel Guy, can I ask a question about the Chase credit cards?

I applied for the Chase Hyatt from your site a month ago. Does Chase have a policy (like the Citi 90-day) that I have to wait a certain amount of time before applying for something else? I'd love to jump on the CO 50k offer too but not sure if I can…

I've searched flyertalk and google and cannot find any real answers (i'm sure they're out there i just can't find them)

Thanks in advance!
james k

Rookie Tip of the Week from James K.
There seems to be a membership rewards transfer frenzy going on. Remember, what makes MR so valuable is their flexibility and the ability to transfer to all three alliances. Until you have travel plans or even better yet a ticket on hold, I would never transfer these valuable points even when there is a bonus. Many people right now are transferring to Delta which is commonly regarded as the least desirable FF Program with high cost seats and limited availability. Most experts agree the best alliance for award travel is *A. If you are transferring these MR before you have an award ticket on hold you don't even know how many miles are required. When you go to book an award ticket you may even end up with orphan miles that you got through a bonus unusable. Take a look at the various award charts; you will see for example a first class redemption from the continental,US to Hawaii in first class is 60,000 miles on Aeroplan. Now try to find that on Delta. As for the British Airway bonus transfer it has been well documented that the bulk of these awards contain high YQs. For excample a first class ticket from JFK to South Africa is $2500 and that's for your ticket that suppose to be free. I would also like to make a point about the Platinum American Express card, while it comes with many benefits, don't forget if your flying Delta business class international you are already going to get free lounge access as well as free luggage, cocktails and meals. It's an expensive card; make sure it presents real travel value for you. In conclusiion, I would strongly suggest you do not give up the flexibility of your membership rewards just to get a bonus. I recommend only transferring them after a reward reservation is on hold. They normally transfer instantly so what's the hurry. Thank You. James K.
Anonymous

Rookie tip:

The airlines and hotels we're signing up for will start sending out copious amounts of email. Looking at each piece every day amounts to window shopping: getting coaxed into buying when you weren't wanting to. Plus, they really can clog up your daily email!

My tip is to sign up for a Google email account specifically for travel. When you need some kind of travel email, you can easily access it: go in and look for the latest, and organize by company if needs be. If the travel blogs are talking about some kind of incredible deal, you'll hear about it first from them rather than email anyway, probably.

Chris D.
Andrew

Anon, regarding two Chase applications: I applied for and received the Chase Hyatt card in November and just received my new Chase Continental card in the mail today. So their is not a hard rule that applies to everyone, but as usual its probably a bit YMMV.
GT

ah – thanks!… i was wondering… maybe i will just try and see… i wish there was an expiration date on it so i could know how long to wait…

Rookie Travel Tips with Shannon

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